From the Earth to the Moon

Victor Barbicane and Stuyvesant Nicholl are widely regarded as the munitions wizards for the Union and the Confederacy, respectively, in the war between the states, Barbicane more of a chemist and Nicholl a metallurgist. The adjective "mad" is often added to wizard until what they proposed came to fruition in its practical use in the war. In the post-war era of supposed world peace in 1868, Barbicane has just developed Power X, the most powerful explosive ever produced. He intends for it to be used as a new source of energy rather than for weapons in war, although he realizes that its power makes it difficult to test in its possible mass destruction. As such, he proposes to the International Armament Club, a group largely comprised of allied industrialists, to rocket a warhead containing Power X to the wasteland of the moon in testing its capabilities, and thus requires funding from them, which they seem more than willing to provide in advancing the technology and ultimately filling their own pocketbooks. However, Barbicane learns directly from the US President in what is meant as private conversation solely between the two of them that many world powers will see the launching of such a rocket as provocation of war in there being no guarantee of fallout of the explosive on Earth. With the Club pulling its support, Barbicane gets an unexpected new associate in a modified venture: Nicholl. The modification, stemming from Nicholl's newly developed metal which was designed to withstand the blast of Power X but which was altered in a targeted hit, is that they themselves will fly to the moon and back in a rocket made of the new metal which could withstand the force of reentry into the Earth's atmosphere, with a third being Barbicane's assistant, Ben Sharpe. What Barbicane is unaware of is that Nicholl has an ulterior motive in joining forces with him with a different goal in mind. The thoughts of those aboard the rocket change when they discover a stowaway, namely Nicholl's young adult daughter Virginia Nicholl, who, having fallen in love with Sharpe, was afraid of never seeing Sharpe or her father ever again.